POWER GAME

Luxury and engine power both demand acres of space, but perfomance boats need to be slender. Can Pershing’s latest creation pull off the ultimate spatial compromise?

- Alan Harper

The proof of the Pershing is in the handling. Few shipyards set quite so much store in their boats’ ability to corner with the kind of competence that raises the hairs on the back of your neck. The trouble is, reputations can be lost as well as gained: just one new model whose talents are judged to be less than sparkling can undo all the respect so hard-won by its predecessors.

Pershing is not unique in this, of course. But it is unique in its efforts to yoke together high-tech sportsboat speed and handling with high-end Italian luxury. And it’s a task that is not getting any easier.

In its new 8X, the Ancona shipyard has faced up to the classic quandary that has exercised every yacht designer who has ever tried to get to grips with the problem of how to make a fast yacht luxurious – and vice versa. Luxury means comfort, and comfort requires space. Performance means power, and power – big engines, big tanks – needs space too. But you can’t just make a hull that’s voluminous enough to accommodate all these conflicting demands, because performance hulls have to be slender, and high-volume hulls don’t handle. Or so they say – it seems that Pershing’s designers now beg to differ. The Pershing 82, which this new model seems destined to replace in the product range, was 18ft 1in (5.50m) in the beam. The 8X is a couple of feet longer but a full 14in wider, at 19ft 3in (5.86m). That’s the sort of length-beam ratio you would expect to find in a family flybridge cruiser – except the 8X packs 5,276hp in its engine room and has a pair of Top System surface drives sticking out at the back. This is not normal.